Amy Hennig is a video game director, producer and script writer responsible for bringing the Uncharted and Legacy of Kain series to life. After the release of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and mobile Golden Abyss she decided to join Visceral Games with actor and director Todd Stashwick to work on their Star Wars game, codenamed Ragtag. Back in October 2018, Visceral Games, the studio behind the Dead Space franchise and Battlefield Hardline was officially closed down.
Electronic Arts vice president Patrick Soderlund confirmed the unfortunate closure in a special statement beck then, in which he also said that the design direction of Visceral's Ragtag would undergo a "significant change." Hennig recently jumped on Twitter to clarify the situation, as the game was said to be too linear by EA bosses and development was instead "pivoted" to EA Vancouver in 2017.
"I left EA six months ago, shortly after the closure of Visceral (along with most of the team)," she wrote. "The story we were crafting has essentially been shelved, but EA Vancouver’s Star Wars game is still very much alive, and I wish my colleagues there nothing but the best." It sounds like Visceral Games' mysterious Ragtag and Hennig's cinematic vision of the game are all but officially gone.
In an interview with Eurogamer, the producer has revealed her plans for the future. "I'm working independently and staying independent. I just started my own small little independent studio and am consulting with some people. I'm hoping to bring some people on board, I would love to have a little company of about six to eight people, 15 at the most, and do some more projects, do some VR stuff - I'm consulting with some VR companies and doing a ton of research because I haven't played a lot to immerse myself in it."
Amy Hennig also received the Honor Award at Gamelab in Barcelona this year, and the Game Reactor crew caught up with her at the event to talk about her career, and she wouldn't rule out making a new Uncharted game with Naughty Dog. "I think there's a lot of material there that you could continue with Cassie, with the daughter, you could do flashback stories with Nathan Drake... you just look at Indiana Jones; there's really not a limit. You can always jump back in and tell a story with an older character and that gives a whole different colour to it, which is kind of cool, and you could do sort of the Young Indiana Jones version of Nathan Drake if you wanted to."
When it comes to the Uncharted movie adaptation starring Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming), she definitely remains optimistic. "I'm excited, because it sounds like the filmmakers are gonna do that actually with the Uncharted film and go back to an earlier time and stuff like that."
According to Metro Gaming's leaks, Ragtag was supposed to be to tell a story that takes place just before the events of The Empire Strikes Back, with Todd Stashwick playing a character nicknamed ‘Dodger’. Because he dodged the draft into Imperial service, when living on his home world of Alderaan with The Empire's forces searching for both survivors and the ‘terrorists’ that blew up the Death Star.